Klein and Hummel
Klein + Hummel (K + H) was a company based in Ostfildern / Kemnat that manufactured studio and sound reinforcement equipment as well as high fidelity devices. It was founded shortly after the Second World War by Walter Hummel, Horst Klein and Heinrich Brumm. Most recently, K + H was a wholly owned subsidiary of Sennheiser and therefore had its headquarters in the municipality of Wedemark from 2005 until it was dissolved on December 31, 2009 . Sennheiser took over the customer service from K + H with its remaining product range.
history
Walter Hummel: “The reproduction has to be so good that it corresponds to the original performance, especially in terms of timbre. That's why we talk about fidelity. ”- This sentence was written in 1935 by 18-year-old Walter Hummel from Heilbronn in the magazine Funkillustrierte , one of the co-founders of the Klein + Hummel company. The basic idea of having your own company goes back a long way to the years of the Second World War. At that time, Walter Hummel was working with the mechanics Horst Klein and Heinrich Brumm as a technical draftsman in the Stuttgart plant of the former WEGA .
Measurement equipment for the radio and later also the television industry, professional low-frequency amplifiers and PA systems were manufactured. From around 1955, Klein + Hummel also produced hi-fi amplifiers and tuners , which still have an excellent reputation today and are sought-after collector's items because of their excellent sound. At times they worked together with the Black Forest company SABA under the Telewatt brand in a joint venture. From around 1960 equipment for recording studios was also produced, from 1979 Klein + Hummel mainly devoted itself to this product range, but ELA systems are also manufactured, for example sound and house program systems for large buildings. At this time, the company withdrew from the hi-fi audio sector (consumer market).
The company logo was initially a white "K + H" on a red background, later the plus sign was removed and replaced by a vertical line (see above). The abbreviation K + H is still often used as a company name (similar to B&W ).
Selected previous products
Active director speakers have been particularly popular since the 1970s. The O 92 is a large active loudspeaker that was mainly used in the sound control rooms of broadcasters. The O 96 is a medium-sized active loudspeaker that was primarily used in the control rooms of television studios and in electronic editing rooms. The O 98 is a small active loudspeaker that was used in broadcast vans and small cutting rooms. All these loudspeakers were and are used privately by ambitious hi-fi listeners and still appear on the second-hand market today. In the 1970s, the top tuner Klein + Hummel FM 2002 was developed by Reinhard Wieschhoff-van Rijn (called the “tuner pope”) in Kemnat . This tuner is still in the top group today and is in great demand. Information on almost all former products can be found on the Klein + Hummel homepage, and the supply of spare parts is still reasonably good.
Selected later products
Before the dissolution, the company produced several active director speakers, the size of which was based on the earlier models. The top peak is currently the O 500, in the middle segment is the O 300 and there is the O 110 as a small active loudspeaker. All models are optionally available with digital inputs. The M 52 mini loudspeaker is available for use purely for control purposes, for example in 19-inch racks. In the meantime, all loudspeakers are magnetically shielded in order to meet the need for installation in the vicinity of computer and video monitors.
Takeover by Sennheiser and dissolution
On March 1, 2005, sales and development from Klein + Hummel GmbH, Kemnat / Ostfildern, were transferred to Sennheiser , and with it the global brand and product rights. The K + H sales and development company was founded as a wholly-owned Sennheiser subsidiary. The K + H brand was initially continued and the production facility in Ostfildern continued to exist independently until October 2006. The production site was finally relocated to Tullamore / Ireland .
On November 16, 2009, the Sennheiser group of companies announced the dissolution of K + H at the end of the year. Around half of the 16 employees were given notice. Sennheiser took over the area of built-in sound technology for new buildings ("Installed Sound"), while the studio loudspeaker area was transferred to the Sennheiser subsidiary Georg Neumann GmbH. The K + H product areas were thus continued under the umbrella of the Sennheiser Group, but the Klein + Hummel brand disappeared from the market. Based on Klein + Hummel, however, all product names for studio speakers from the Neumann brand begin with the letters "KH". The products continue to be successful in the market. In 2011 the KH-120A were the first monitors to be sold under the new name Neumann.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cream of Audio: Regiemonitor Klein + Hummel O 410 High Tech Audio from Germany. In: Cream of Audio. April 20, 2010, accessed July 19, 2020 .
- ^ Report of the HAZ from November 16, 2009
- ↑ Sennheiser balance sheet 2007: audio specialist achieves another record result. Retrieved July 19, 2020 .
- ↑ Neumann KH 120 A test: bonedo.de. Retrieved July 27, 2020 .
